To put in a CSA claim?

[macdoodle]

Posted in Lone Parents but am posting here for a bit more traffic, I know I am not being unreasonable but could do with some MN bolstering, keep telling me IANBU, maybe I'll believe it :(

My XH is a nasty abusive twat
We have 2 DD's (9 and 3), he does see them, when he can be bothered and when he isnt working abroad.
We have been seperated 4 years and divorced 1.He has NEVER contributed financially, not even when we were together and not a penny since he moved out.
I have been paying all the joint debts from hus business which has finally been wrapped up.
Luckily I have a good job and we have survived but its been hard at times (and I almost lost my house).He seems to have walked away scot free.

He has worked erratically since we split and it never seemed worth the hassle of pursuing. But for the last year or so he has worked consistently abroad for months at a time, earning I am sure not an inconsiderable amount. I have paid every penny for my girls and paid all our joint debts. I have significant debts left, a credit card to bail us out when things were really bad, a looming tax bill, and large solicitors fees I work bloody hard.

So he is back for a few weeks over xmas, and I gently bring up him paying some child support, I suggest very reasonably I think, that he only pays me the weeks he works and an amount much less than I worked out on the CSA calculator.

I got an earful of abuse and sneering, he just cannot see why he should pay anything when "you earn XX a year" . He has no sense of responsibility at all.

I am not going to let him get away with it (if he can afford to buy DD1, himself and his GF £300 Ipods, a massive widescreen TV etc etc), then he can afford to support them, even its just enough for school shoes/uniform, music lessons or childcare etc.

I thought I was past him affecting me, but I am absolutely terrified how he will react, I have almost completed an online application but am still hesitating, IANBU am I??

YANBU - absolutely YANBU, and you know it. It's not your problem that he has such a tenuous grip on reality - it is his problem that he's fathered children he's not prepared to be responsible for.

Plus, if you go via the CSA, it takes it out of your personal space - you don't have to discuss it with him at all. And the less you talk to him the better...

I could have posted this myself! I am in an almost similar position and had decided that January would be the month to apply to the CSA (havent done it yet) but my ex's reaction is the reason for my delay. My advice to others would be go for it, you and your children are entitled to it but I can fully appreciate why you are hesitant. I am all for a quiet life and just cannot find the energy to go through more drama and abuse when I can avoid it :(

Do it!

Yes, do it ASAP as they can only backdate payment to the day you apply, so the sooner the better. And can I just ask, why the hell are you paying his business debts off?!

Go for it, you should never had to have paid off all the debts you had jointly, he should have paid half.

He should contribute.

Press submit.

YANBU - I have never had a penny from DCs dad, however,be aware that if he is working abroad, and lies on their form.. It may be difficult for the CSA to pin him down on his earnings, especially if he isn't paying tax,or NI properly.

If your ex works abroad - is he paying NI contributions in this country? As if he isn't paying then the CSA will do a good job of nothing at all, plus they will also put those fuck up fairies to work and probably you will find in soem way you have to pay them - I don't trust the CSA - can you tell They talk a lot of nonesense, they told me on the phone one day they had left a message on my answer phone, I asked if they had my notes on the screen? yes they replied - then hows answer machine did you leave a message as I don't have one. Sorry to say but they are lazy and sloppy. One month they payed the maintenence for my two dc to another claiment computer error doesn't really cover it. So then they tryed to take the money from my ex's company twice the following month. I never got in contact with the CSA, my ex did thinking I beleive he could hoodwink them into beleiving he didn't earn enough to pay!

So no I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole.

YANBU though to request assistance with the cost of bringing up your ex's and yours dc, it is a great shame he like others don't take on the responsability of thier dc

I paid the debts because it was a big loan in joint names, secured on my house :( I am in a job were bankruptcy would have mad it very difficult for me to work. I was desperately trying to hold onto my house, be responsible and be honest (expected in my profession). I didn't pay anything that was in his name alone but that wasn't a lot.

Ivykat, I am worried they will make it worse, and restart the abuse and harassment with no outcome. He has already sneeringly told me they won't be able to get him :( His words.

Why do some men thinks its something to be proud of that they actively avoid supporting their children. My DD1 thinks he's wonderful because he bought her an Ipod touch when i had already said no/couldnt afford it, that amount of money could have bought her school uniform/shoes and paid music and trampolining lessons for the 1st term. Why does he have no sense of responsibility. Why did I marry him. Why did I choose such a loser to be the father of my amazing girls

I wonder what he tells his GF/OW about why he doesnt support his children, I have no doubt that it is somehow my fault :( Why would you be with someone who so clearly shirks his responsibility!

In principle YANBU. However if his earnings are paid into a non-uk account, ort he is not UK resident for tax purposes then AFAIK the CSA wont be able to get a penny out of him.

My Exp pays nothing for either of our DSs, and ran up £40k worth of debt against our mortgage (before I froze the joint account). He has now given up work - was earning very well in the construction industry etc - at least in part because he doesnt ever want to pay me a penny. Coicidentally he also bought our DSs an Ipod touch each for Xmas!

I know he has told all his family I ripped him off (lie) and that I was only with him for his money (lie, he spent everything he earned and more!)....I could go down CSA route but as he now has no job it seems utterly pointless. When he was working, his co accounts were set up to show his income as £400 per month, so I wouldnt have got anything then either. I'm lucky that I can manage without his financial contribution but if I needed the money I'd have no alternative but to go after him via CSA.

Even if he's working abroad he might still be liable for tax in this country, in which case the inland revenue will have details of his earnings. Fill in the form. Don't get into any discussions with him about it.

i tend to agree that the CSA is a waste of time. better to go through the legal route and get a settlement pinned down there? you say you have legal debts - from the divorce? was the financial settlement not mentioned at the time by your lawyer? ie it's usual for the financial settlement to be carved out at the same time as the divorce.

it sounds however that your ex is a nasty piece of work. there;s something about money that binds you to a person... I can say with hindsight that I would rather I hadn't taken a penny from ex because it gave him too much control over me..

but you could get his debts looked at by the courts? I'd give it a try, even if you have already paid them. I would make enquiries, without his knowledge, about what you can and can't do legally re him working abroad. get in touch with Womens Aid - fantastic support/advice in your situation.

but listen to your guts - he must have been an abusive guy if you are feeling a lot of fear about confronting him. YANBU to want to get a financial settlement but you know and I know that with some people it isn't that straightforward

It isnt a waste of time because if he is working and resident in the UK then they can assess him, and will assess him on what they think he earns if he doesnt co-operate. If he doesnt pay then it all goes into his "arrears" account.

Then, and it could be in 10 years, if he works in the UK they can trace him through HMRC and get it from him that way. The arrears will still be there, so it is worth doing if only because it starts the ball rolling now incase his circumstances change in the future, so it makes getting any money quicker.

Thats what the CSA and a solictor told me about my ex, and now I do get payments periodically.

Meant to say, the assessment isnt based on where he works but what he earns and what he should be paying. The working outside of the UK is only an issue in terms of collecting the money.

This makes me sick. I battled for twelve years on my own with no family and never got a penny from my ex. I just dont know how they get away with it. I worked three jobs and my son was very sick at times, life threateningly so. How how and why. Not one penny. Grr on your behalf.

I have also thought about CSA my ex and i agreed amount he should pay using the CSA calculator but I know he will never offer any more and I will never know if he earns more and could afford more. What stops me is that i have been told CSA take a % of the money every month.

Sorry forgot to ask can CSA have any say on access?

why are you even asking this question? get to csa immediately. they are his children and if he is going to be an arse then slap it up him. go to a good solicitor or other advice centre and don't let him be a fuckwit or in any way intimidate you and if he does go straight to the courts and get the fucker.

(may have been drinking)

I saw this late last night but DS needed me before I could post.

I dont know anything really abut the CSA. But I do know a bit about loans taken out in joint names that are for the benefit of one party only where the bank should have made further inquiry or where undue influence was exerted by one party over the other.

I know a bit about this because in a past life I worked a lot with arranging mortgages and secured loans and we had to do an extra interview and complete special additional paperwork where the money being borrowed for things like family business to evidence we'd made both parties aware of their joint liability after the case of O'Brien vs Barclays Bank (1994). More info, including a link to that case can be found here but it may give you grounds to fight the joint debts with the lender??

Obviously I'm not a lawyer but it does sound terribly unfair what's happened.

I meant that I have little faith in the Child Support Agency which I think has been officially recognised as generally useless. I'm sure some people have had a success story through CSA but the majority are horror stories. imo it is better to go through the courts.

YANBU Doesn't matter what you earn, they are his responsibility too. You have my sympathy.

toody, the CSA does not take a percentage. At all. The CSA doesn't even see the money unless the parent with whom the children live (the "resident parent") asks the CSA to collect it on her/his behalf and then pay it on.

And by "access", do you mean contact between the non-resident parent and the child(ren)? If so, the CSA has no involvement with deciding that or policing it. Child maintenance and child contact are two entirely separate things.

The only connection is that if the non-resident parent has the child(ren) staying over for more than 51 nights a year then the CSA can reduce the child maintenance payments on a pro-rata basis.

humanheart, the courts rarely get involved with child maintenance these days unless it's part of divorce proceedings and, even then, after a year you can opt to hand it over to the CSA.

One of the driving forces that lead to the creation of the CSA was to get the huge numbers of child maintenance cases off of the courts' caseload.

I agree that the CSA is pretty crap in all but the most straight-forward of cases but they're all there is when you have an ex who doesn't voluntarily pay what he/she should.

Humanheart, I would disagree with you saying that the majority are horror stories. Its just that all you hear about are horror stories.

It is very easy to avoid paying, I know because my ex did it, and the CSA spent an awful long time chasing him up and when they do get him they always get something. Its just that people dont tend to make a fuss when things are going well so all you hear about are the crap cases. Me and several of my friends use the CSA and we are all happy with it.

Toody, the CSA have never taken a % off me and as Snorbs said, the only time they have anything to do with access is when they ask how much time the child spends with the absent parent, to calculate payments. They dont have anything to do with arranging or enforcing access, thats down to the courts.

Of course YANBU - I was on the phone to the CSA the day my ex-H canceled our private arrangement (without telling me). It is not our 'job' to suffer just because we're the parent with care.

The CSA charge £2 per month for taking the money from a company - they charge the NRP in the case and not the Resident parent, but this is only if the money had to come from earnings direct and not if the NRP in the case just fills in a SO form and pays the CSA and then the CSA pay the RP

As for OP, well I would probably smurk back and wink oh and doesn't the tax man just love chasing you round the garden. You can work abroad etc but the rules are tight on the not paying tax etc - smurk about a cup of tea and chat with the lovely tax man looking at your case - oh wouldn't it be nice. With arse holes walking around you have every right to wind the up